In many areas of life it is necessary, or sometimes just convenient to have tightly-fitting clothing or footwear. Unfortunately, with such tightly-fitting items it can be difficult for a user to put them on to the relevant part of his or her body. For example, a wetsuit has to be closely fitting to a user's skin. It can be difficult for a user to introduce a limb into the sleeve or leg of such an item of clothing because, in order to make them tightly-fitting, they are usually, in the relaxed state, slightly smaller than the diameter of the limb to which they are associated. Introducing an arm into a sleeve, for example, then stretches the sleeve to fit snugly around the arm. This applies not only to wetsuits for water sports but to any other close-fitting garments, such as those made of lycra, rubber or leather and especially those used for sporting purposes such as cycling, running or the like. Furthermore, it is sometimes difficult for less-able bodied people to introduce a limb into a garment or shoe for example.
As far as footwear is concerned, it is known that ski boots for example must fit firmly in order to protect a user's ankle and ensure the necessary close contact between the skier and the skis which enables the skier to position the skis in the correct orientation in order successfully to negotiate the slope and/or any obstacles which may be encountered during a downhill run. Ski boots are made with pivoted or hinging components, which enable the opening through which the user's foot is to be introduced to be enlarged to make it less difficult to introduce, but even with this contrivance, considerable difficulty can be encountered, especially in seeking to introduce the heel past the rear ankle support of the boot. Likewise, snowboarders require closely-fitting footwear and the present invention is relevant in this area too.
Similarly, in another field, Wellington boots used widely throughout agricultural and horticultural environments, can be difficult to put on if they are to have a reasonably tight fit. The alternative, of wearing loose boots is not normally acceptable, especially if the boot is to be worn for a long period of time. Thus, in order to fit the garment or boot onto the body part, considerable force may be required to overcome the friction or resistance between the body part, which may be already partly clothed, and the garment or footwear into which it is being introduced. In the case of a ski boot, as discussed above, considerable downward force may be required on the user's foot and ankle to overcome the frictional resistance between the boot liner and the user's sock so that there is a risk of injury from excessive force, and, even if injury is avoided, the whole experience may be unpleasant, painful, time consuming and disagreeable. Individuals with weak, damaged and/or artificial knee joints may have particular problems when fitting ski boots or Wellington boots.
Although the pivoted, modern, rear entry ski boots have eased the problem and made for easier fitting, these nevertheless still require quite a considerable force on the user's foot especially in the region of the heel when the foot is being introduced into the interior of the boot, and this occurs at a time when the foot is pronated and the ankle is therefore under more than usual stress. Although some particular examples of footwear and clothing have been given above it will be appreciated that this is without prejudice to the generality of the present invention and its field of application. Tightly-fitting footwear is found in many other areas, such as ladies' fashion lines, equestrian wear and others too numerous to mention.
The present inventions seeks, therefore, to provide means by which the above-discussed problems can be eased, in which the introduction of a finger or hand into a glove, an arm into a sleeve, a leg into a leg, or a foot into a boot and so on can be rendered more comfortable and much less stressful. The overall problem is recognised to be the amount of friction involved in the exercise, and it is known that frictional forces are related to the area of contact between the relatively moving parts and to the contact forces exchanged between them. Since neither of these factors can be materially changed in the garments or footwear the only difference which is available is a change in the co-efficient of friction. However, it is not possible simply to utilise a material having a low coefficient of friction in the manufacture of the garment or the footwear since in some instances as described above, once fitted, a close-coupling between the garment and the user may be desired so that relatively high friction materials are often the preferred choice.
The conflicting requirements of low friction upon introduction of the body part into the garment, and high friction after the introduction has been effected, can be met, according to the invention, by providing a low-friction insert element which can be positioned over the body part or in the garment or footwear, allowing simple low-friction introduction of the body part into the garment or footwear, the inert element subsequently being removed from the interface between the body part and the garment or footwear with ease and stored for subsequent use.
One of the problems with such an arrangement, however, is that the interspace between the body part and the garment or footwear is typically extremely small, even non-existent in the case of elasticated or resilient garments which “grip” the user's limb or foot in use, so any such introduction aid must necessarily be extremely thin in order for it to successfully be used and removed with damaging either the garment or footwear or the aid itself.
Thin material having sufficient tensile strength to resist the forces exchanged between the material and the immediately adjacent body part and/or garment or footwear part is available, but a major difficulty is encountered in producing such an element in which there are adequate means for the user to grip the element in order to draw it out of the position in which it has been located for the introduction to take place. Prior art such elements have utilised holes formed in an elongate thin strip such as that as described in GB Patent application 2 408 442, whereas a rather thicker material with an integral gripping portion in the form of a flexible shoe horn is described in U.S. Pat. No. 3,396,883. A different form of footwear insertion apparatus is described in U.S. Pat. No. 6,065,654, but the means for a user to grip the element to withdraw it simply comprise two holes formed in the element itself, and the reduction in cross-sectional area at the point at which the forces are applied inevitably result in the risk of tearing or rupture of the material during use.
The present invention seeks to provide means by which the above difficulties and deficiencies in the prior art can be overcome, by providing a device for assisting the introduction of a body part into a tightly-fitting garment which will be capable of resisting the forces exerted on it by a user during the action of withdrawal of the insertion aid after the body part has been successfully introduced.